


After Life

by thedevilchicken



Category: American Werewolf in London (1981)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Explicit Sexual Content, Ghost Sex, Hospitals, M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 06:23:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: David died twelve years ago today.





	After Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



> A Yuletide treat for skazka!
> 
> Note: This assumes that Jack is less actual reanimated corpse and is something more non-corporeal instead. 
> 
> I think it's more or less possible to see Jack as something like a soul stuck in limbo and not the literal walking dead even in the film (if you turn your head and squint) - I mean, if we have werewolves then we can totally have rotting pseudo-ghosts messed with by the unseen laws of the supernatural! But this is what the "Alternate Universe - Ghosts" tag is here to refer to.
> 
> skazka, I very much hope you like it!

David died twelve years ago today. 

Honestly, before, he was never sure if he believed in life after death. He's always been an I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it kind of guy, he guesses - he was the pain in the ass kid in the back row always asking the questions no one else would, day after day, year after year, classroom or shul. It got him pretty good grades out of high school and college, but when Grandpa Joel died and his mom said he'd gone to a better place, he asked how she knew dead wasn't just dead. The look on her face wasn't pretty. Scepticism sometimes isn't the greatest gift a guy can have. 

He was never sure if he believed in life after death. Until it happened to him, that is. 

It's been twelve years now since he died and he figures he's got a little longer in him yet. After all, he's got a job to do.

\---

What he remembers most about waking up the day after the night before isn't the scratchy sheets or the bright hospital room lights or even the splitting headache that felt kinda like he'd taken an ax straight to the forehead, not that he had personal experience of that particular phenomenon. What he remembers most is how quiet it was. 

Every hospital he'd ever been in up until that point had been loud, even at night. Even if the patients all shut the hell up for five consecutive second, there was the staff - nurses with trays, doctors on rounds, porters with wheelchairs and squeaky-wheeled carts. And then, even if all the people in the whole place shut up like some kind of a miracle had just occurred, there were the sounds of the machines underneath. He couldn't hear anything, not even traffic passing by outside, at least nothing except the sound of his own breath and a couple of low voices several rooms away every now and then, so at least he knew he hadn't been struck deaf. It just didn't feel a whole lot like a hospital. He had no idea where he was. Somehow, that was becoming kind of a regular thing. 

He was trying to disentangle himself from the sheets when the door swung open thirty seconds later - he felt more panicked by the fact his hands didn't seem to want to grip and his toes kept spasming than by the fact he wasn't alone. Besides, when he looked up from his linen-related predicament, it was Jack. 

"Oh, hey, you're awake," Jack said. "I knew you always said _I'll sleep when I'm dead_ but it was starting to get weird."

Jack sat down in a chair a few feet away from the bed, surprisingly nonchalant about the whole thing considering David had no goddamned idea what had happened and was staring at him like one or both of them had lost their mind. The smile on Jack's face seemed to be stuck part of the way between amused and long-suffering as he gestured at the tray table hooked over the bed, sort of like he'd developed psychic powers. David pawed it closer with his stupid, gripless hands. There was a newspaper on it, still folded in half and he didn't even attempt to get fine enough control of his fingers to change that but he could read the headlines, at least: _MAD DOG!_ _Terror as monster dog stalks Piccadilly Circus._ _Nine dead and dozens injured in animal attack that rocks the capital._

"Shit," David said. He pushed the table away. "Shit. _Nine_?"

"Hey, if it's any consolation, you only killed three of them," Jack said. "The rest were all car crashes. Oh, and the bus."

"You know, Jack, it's really not a consolation."

Jack held up his hands. "Seriously, I'm just trying to help," he said. He sat back and crossed his legs at the knee and slung one arm over the back of the chair like he owned the place. 

"Oh, and one of the nine was you," he added. 

"Me?"

"Well, the police did shoot you." He wafted one finger in the general direction of David's bare torso and when he looked down, there were patches of gauze taped to his skin. He tried to unpeel one but still couldn't grip; he pushed at it with the heel of his hand, wincing, until the tape rolled and it came unstuck. There was a gunshot wound underneath, healing up pretty well but still obvious. 

"The police _shot_ me?"

"Let's face it, David, you _were_ trying to eat people on a crowded street in central London," Jack replied. "Piccadilly Circus is not exactly the Yorkshire moors."

"Alex?"

"You didn't eat her, if that's what you're asking."

"And I was _dead_?"

"As a doornail, my friend." Jack leaned forward, elbows to knees, almost conspiratorial about it though they were definitely the only ones there in the room. "Good news is, death seems to have cured your lycanthropy."

"You mean I'm not a werewolf anymore?"

"Let's just say you didn't grow hair places you really shouldn't last full moon," Jack said. "It's been six weeks, David. You slept like a baby."

He'd like to think what he did next made sense to him at the time but he knows it really didn't. It wasn't calculated. He didn't think it through, mostly because he didn't think at all. He was just so damn happy to hear it was over and Alex was okay and he wasn't going to chew on any more Londoners for shits and giggles that he leaned over and kissed Jack right on the mouth like that made any kind of sense as a celebration, one hand at the back of Jack's neck because apparently his fingers chose that moment to produce some kind of motor control. He kissed him, pressed his mouth straight to his, and then pulled back just as suddenly. 

"What was that for?" Jack asked. Fortunately, he looked more curious than mad, and David took a couple of seconds to consider the situation as his heart beat just a fraction too fast. 

"Call it a moment of madness," he replied, then he frowned. "Hey, if I died and I'm not a werewolf doesn't that mean you don't have to do all that restless undead wandering the earth bullshit anymore?"

Jack shrugged. "Sure, I think that was the theory."

"So why are you here?" He narrowed his eyes. "Are you real?"

Jack crossed his arms over his chest. He smiled wryly. "Well, of course I'm not real," he said. 

"Oh God, I'm hallucinating."

"They _do_ have you on some pretty strong drugs."

"I don't believe this."

The problem was, he _did_ believe it. He absolutely did, because it made just the kind of dumb sense that everything had since that night on the moors. Life after death made sense. Hallucinations made sense, and not just because he'd never really had the time to grieve or even start to come to terms with any of it, let alone Jack's death - the wolf shit had taken over before he'd had a chance. And Alex, beautiful, perfect Alex who hadn't seemed to give a damn that he was basically a lunatic - wow, she deserved a whole lot more than being his supernaturally-inspired rebound. The fact was, Jack was gone. _Jack was gone_ , and he guesses that was the moment it really hit him because the next thing he knew he was kissing him again. The next thing he knew, he had one hand in Jack's hair and one hand gripping the front of his pristine parka - so much for rotting, the guy looked a whole lot better than he had the last time he'd seen him, you wouldn't've even known he was dead - and he was _kissing_ him. 

There'd been times he'd thought about it before, of course - it was a spur-of-the-moment act but it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment impulse because he'd had it before, back in New York when his life had involved more six-pointed stars than five-pointed ones and the average night out didn't involve turning into a wolf and mauling passersby. They were both the kid of guys who weren't _un_ popular, and maybe Jack struck out as much as he got lucky but he _did_ have luck and somewhere along the way, David had realized he was jealous of the girls, not of Jack for bringing them home to the shitty apartment they shared. Somewhere along the way, he'd started thinking about Jack the way he'd thought about Pete Ellis back in high school, even if he'd never done a single thing about it. He'd told himself no because really, _no_ , but there it was. He was kissing Jack. They'd both died, so he figured a little wish-fulfilment couldn't hurt. 

He was kissing Jack until he wasn't, at least. Jack pulled back with a look on his face like David had just announced his intention to move to Puerto Rico and call himself Juan. 

"So what the hell was _that_ for?" Jack asked. 

David shrugged. "I guess it's easier, knowing you're not real," he replied. "I mean, if you tell me to go fuck myself, so what? It's not like I don't know I'm all screwed up in the head. I'm pretty sure I can take being rejected by my own subconscious."

Jack looked at him. For a moment, all Jack did was look at him, and David just looked straight back because honestly, kissing a hallucination of his straight best friend barely even made it into the top ten most fucked up things he'd seen or heard or done since they'd arrived in England and he'd be damned if he was going to back down from his own imagination. Then Jack rubbed the wrong way at his own stubbly jaw with a loud rasp that almost made David flinch and he tilted his head at him. 

"So, you're saying you like me," he said. 

"Sure, Jack. I like you."

"No, I mean, you _like me_."

"Sure, Jack. That, too."

"This has been going on for a while?"

"A while, sure."

"It's not just guilt over the whole leaving me to get eaten to death on the moors thing?"

"Since freshman calculus." 

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Then Jack did something David wasn't expecting at all because he was pretty sure the real David would've laughed like he'd told a really funny joke or said some kind of supportive shit about how he was totally on the side of gay rights or whatever but he just didn't think of him that way, could they just stay friends? And David would nod and smile and say sure, he was sorry, they could just pretend it never happened at all, except that's not what happened. 

Jack, looking like he'd been struck by lightning or sideswiped by a semi, leaned forward and pressed his mouth to David's. Jack stood and he bent over him sitting there in the hospital-like bed and he kissed him, one hand in David's hair and one leaning against the headboard to keep him upright, and David tried to say something except opening his mouth just confused things a whole lot more because then he was Frenching Jack, all tongues and teeth, all breathless and stupid, gripping him by his biceps like he was holding on for dear life. It was dumb as hell but it felt good, it felt great, so maybe his subconscious got things right once in a while, after all. 

Jack pulled back first, with a triumphant smile as he stood up straight, his hands on his hips. 

You know, if I'd known math turned you on, I'd've sat down next to you that first class and recited pi to thirty digits," Jack said. 

David raised his brows. "I'm pretty sure you don't know pi to thirty digits, Jack," he replied. "I'm pretty sure you don't know it to ten."

Jack flashed him a grin. "I'd've learned," he said, and then he vanished into thin air like he'd never been there at all. 

Sitting there, after, David was pretty sure he was losing his mind. Still, he guessed he could think of worse things to hallucinate. 

\---

He was in and out of consciousness, or at least in and out of dreamless sleep, for the rest of the day and at least most of the next one. Of course, who knew - it could've been weeks and he just didn't know it. There wasn't even a clock in the room, and the only date was on a newspaper that his imagination had told him was six weeks old. 

Then, Nurse Gallagher came in with pills. He recognised her from the hospital but she wouldn't tell him anything, just that Dr. Hirsch was away on business for the rest of the week and he'd said to tell him he'd be more than happy to explain exactly what was going on and answer any and all questions he might have when he returned. When she came back with food a little later, he quit asking where he was and asked about Alex. He guessed at the very least she answered him on that - she said Alex was fine, but she also told him she thought he was dead. Everyone did. Then she disappeared again, closing the door behind her. 

Forty minutes of shitty English radio over a pair of ill-fitting headphones later, without even managing to get a date from the whole thing and after he'd read the newspaper still sitting on the tray table twice through out of sheer boredom, he turned his head toward the door of the en suite bathroom and there was Jack again. He almost dropped the newspaper but maybe that would've been some kind of a blessing; he'd kept reading his name in the list of fatalities over and over again, side by side with the others like he wasn't the reason they were dead. 

"Y'know, it's not your fault," Jack said, then he screwed up his face as he sat down in the chair. "Okay, sure, it's kinda your fault. But it's not like you went out there with an ax and gave them forty whacks."

David sighed. "You can stop trying to make me feel better anytime now," he said. He sighed again, dramatically, leaning back against the headboard though the cold steel made him shiver. "None of them turned out like me, right?"

"What, pointy teeth, howling at the moon?" Jack shook his head. "No. Everyone you bit died."

"And they can't...come back?"

"You were a werewolf, David, not a vampire. And definitely not a zombie, but it turns out they're both real, too. Who knew, right?"

David squeezed his eyes shut. His head didn't exactly feel a whole lot better than it had before, though he wasn't totally sure if that was in spite of or because of the drugs Nurse Gallagher had given him, and it'd taken him twenty minutes to get into the bathroom every time he'd needed to pee, never mind getting back out to the bed again. He really didn't need to be shooting the breeze with his dead best friend about werewolves, let alone any other creatures of the night. Especially not when what was on his mind regarding the aforementioned dead best friend was something completely different. It wasn't werewolves at all. It definitely wasn't vampires or zombies. 

"Hey, Jack, about what happened yesterday..."

 

"It was the day before."

"Okay, so about what happened the day before yesterday."

"You mean when we made out."

"Well, I wasn't going to call it _making out_."

Jack raised his brows, amused, and crossed his arms over his chest. "So, what would you call it?" he asked. "It was a whole lot more than a peck on the cheek, David. There were tongues."

David groaned. "Are you _trying_ to make this difficult?" he asked. Jack grinned; apparently he was, which was just like him. "So, about that."

"About you making out with me."

"Sure, Jack. About me making out with you."

Jack shrugged. "What about it?"

"I mean, what exactly happened there?"

Jack leaned forward on his knees. "Well, I'm pretty sure what happened was you finally got over yourself and admitted you're in love with me," he said. 

"So one kiss and I'm in love with you?"

Jack nodded, smiling a particularly self-satisfied smile. "Smitten," he said. 

"You think so?"

"David, I _know_ so." 

He stood. He sat down on the edge of David's bed and he patted David obnoxiously on one cheek, then he ran his hand down as David's eyes started to widen and his pulse started to race. He hadn't found any clothes in the stark white bedroom or the matching stark white bathroom and he'd felt too totally wiped out with every move he made to try heading out into the hall to track some down so he was naked under the starchy sheet and the Pepto-Bismol pink blanket he made his eyes hurt to look at. He was naked and Jack caught the edge of the sheet he'd got tucked up under his armpits and he pulled it down. 

He pulled it down to rest in David's lap for a second but only so he could shift his denim-clad ass and then pull it down lower and the next thing David knew, he was sitting there bare to mid-thigh with butterflies in his stomach and Jack just sitting there looking at him with an amused half-smile. But then Jack's fingers trailed down over David's chest, pinched hard at one nipple and made him yelp as Jack snickered, then skimmed his abdomen right down to his flaccid cock. He wasn't soft for long; Jack looked him in the eye with just the faintest blush in his cheeks as he stroked him slowly, and David started to stiffen in his hand. 

Stupidly, he just sat back and let him do it. He should've probably told him to stop because hey, even if he was just a figment of David's imagination he was still his best friend and he remembered what had happened with his best friend back in high school - they'd gotten each other off listening to his brother's Black Sabbath LP and the next thing he'd known, Nate was going to Bible camp and couldn't see that Satanist boy ever again, never mind the fact he was actually Jewish. Then again, he never did figure out if the problem was more Satan or the handjob, or maybe equal parts of both. 

He should've probably told him to stop but he didn't. He sat and watched him do it and he told himself it was because he was too goddamn tired to move or because his head hurt like his brain was trying to crawl out and get some air even though the room he was in had no windows or because his hands were doing that idiot thing where all he could do was wave them limply, but the truth is he let him do it because he wanted him to do it. He'd been thinking about it for years, ten times a day or maybe more sometimes, sometimes in his room at night or in the shower in the morning or when he was with someone else, girls, guys, it didn't matter. He'd imagined it - he'd tried not to in the start, the first few times they'd met in math class, because all he'd known was his name was Jack Goodman and he had the sort of sense of humor that made him snicker till their professor glared in their direction every seven to ten minutes throughout. Then they'd started hanging out after class, in the cafeteria, "studying" in the library, Jack's dorm, David's, and he'd tried not to think about it then because by then they were friends. Then they'd moved in together and that just made it ten times more awkward. And besides, Jack liked girls. He'd tried not to imagine it, but he still had sometimes. 

"Y'know, I dated the TA from our sophomore chem lab," Jack said, almost conversationally except he had David's dick in his hand and weird look in his eye that David couldn't quite place. 

David frowned. "You dated Dave Franklin?"

"Yeah." Jack gave a firm squeeze at the head of David's cock and David groaned out loud, loudly, surprised, his head lolling back. "In the end, he stopped correcting me when I called him _David_ in the sack."

"Bullshit, you didn't."

Jack raised his brows, squeezing at David's balls like he knew just the way he liked it. "I really did," he replied. "He hated it. I guess he knew I was thinking about someone else the whole time, huh."

David didn't say another word. Honestly, he wasn't sure what he could've said - his subconscious was doing a really good job of making shit up to make him feel better about having a thing for the buddy he'd watched getting torn apart by a goddamn werewolf, like that was a thing that happened in his life now, so talking back seemed kinda pointless. He just closed his eyes and let Jack stroke him, slowly, not slowly enough to be teasing but not tight enough to not be or maybe he was just scared he'd hurt him so he closed one semi-useless hand over Jack's and made a stoic attempt at tightening his grip for him. Jack got the picture pretty quickly but David still thought it was pretty shitty he couldn't even control his own hallucination when he knew full well that was what it was. 

The problem was, when David's stomach tightened, when his pulse raced and his breath quickened and his hips bucked up against Jack's hand of their own accord, when his stupid eyes opened and he looked right at him as he jerked and came over Jack's fingers, Jack didn't feel like a hallucination. He felt very, very real. 

Then David blinked and he was gone again. 

As far as he could tell, everything they'd just done he'd done to himself. 

\---

Nurse Gallagher brought him a new newspaper with his breakfast in the morning. The incident at Piccadilly Circus was just a footnote by then and judging by the date, he really had been wherever he was for six weeks. Unless, of course, they were playing some kind of CIA super-spook mind games with him. 

"They're smart but they're not exactly devious," Jack told him later on that afternoon, lounging in the chair by his bed like it was as much his room as it was David's. David guessed it was, but only on the technicality that they were in fact one and the same person. "Seriously, you've got a twisted mind. You're here to get well, not to get interrogated."

"And how do I know what the drugs are really for? I don't even know what they are. I don't even know if I really need them."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you need them," Jack said. "You just came back from the dead, I think that calls for a little medical attention. But hey, if you don't believe me, don't take them and find out."

He told him he hadn't taken his morning pills and Jack shook his head with a look like David had just told him he thought the Earth was flat. When he felt like he might just keel over dead not even fifteen minutes later, Jack somehow refrained from saying _I told you so_ , but the look on his face really said it for him. 

He took the pills after that and pretty soon, he felt better. Jack talked the whole time while he was waiting for them to kick in, about the fact that oddly enough the family vacation to Europe he'd taken back when he was fourteen had been worse than this though he didn't say how, about his high school girlfriend he'd thought he'd marry one day except she went away to college and turned out to be a lesbian and wasn't that ironic. He talked about movies he'd seen and books he'd read and banging the Swiss guy from his English class junior year who actually spoke English as a fourth language, which sucked when all either he or David knew in German or French or Italian was how to order a beer and ask for the bathroom. He appreciated the distraction and he guessed if his subconscious _had_ to conjure an audiovisual disturbance, he could've done a whole lot worse. 

Then, when David finally stopped groaning and regretting his stupid choices, Jack abruptly shut the fuck up , pulled back the sheets and blew him. David watched Jack's mouth on him. David _felt_ Jack's mouth on him, hot and wet and insistent. It wasn't long till he came from it and he watched Jack swallow and wipe his mouth on the back of his hand as he looked at him, kinda sheepish, kinda amused. 

"I've been thinking about doing that all day," he said. "Don't you think I could've done it a whole lot sooner if you'd taken your pills on time?"

Then David blinked and he was gone again but he thought maybe his subconscious had a point about his suspicious mind. Still, he'd learned his lesson: he'd take the damn pills from now on.

\---

The next morning, he woke up and Jack was there in the chair again. And okay, maybe he should've been wishing him away for the good of his own continued mental health, but it was kinda hard to when Jack had his jeans shoved down around his thighs and his dick in his hand. 

Unusually, Jack didn't say a word at all. He just sat there, stroking himself with one slick hand with his jeans pushed down and his shirt hitched up under his arms and David watched him from the bed, lying there on his side, naked under the sheets. He'd seen Jack wearing less before that, drunk nights back in college, toweling himself off after a shower because he'd had a pathological inability to lock the bathroom door, so he guessed that was where the images came from for it, except he'd never seen him hard before and wow, he was hard, his cock was huge and flushed and slick under his hand and David just couldn't look away. 

David was hard himself in about fifteen second and leaking into the crappy sheets Nurse Gallagher had made a show of changing the day before while he'd been trying to shower but he was so weak he'd given up halfway through, so she'd given him a sponge bath. Considering the fact he was fantasizing about Jack in a way that was _so_ very much more than usual, the sponge bath wasn't even the most awkward thing that had happened that week. Still, he figured he was making progress - the day he'd woken up, just making it into the bathroom had seemed pretty impossible, let alone into the shower. 

Then Jack paused. He reached over to the drawers by the bed and produced a tube of lube that he tossed at David; it hit him squarely in the chest and almost fell onto the floor but he stuck one hand out and caught it, pretty much just by blind luck. Jack raised his brows meaningfully and David guessed he knew what he had to do, so he did it. He pushed back the sheets and he sat himself up, swung his legs off of the bed and faced Jack head-on. He slicked his fingers. He slicked his cock. Then he stroked himself, slowly, squeezing at the tip as he watched Jack's hand move, too. 

David parted his legs a little wider. Sitting right on the edge of the mattress, perching there naked with his bare feet on the vinyl floor, it was easy to slip his free hand down and squeeze his balls and sheesh, what he was doing was _so_ dumb - he was putting on a show for a figment of his own damaged imagination. BHe knew that but he didn't stop. He kept on going, feeling like his entire body was blushing as he stroked his cock and cupped his balls and rubbed behind them with his fingertips and when he glanced up from Jack's hands to his face, Jack did the same. Jack's face was flushed and his lips were parted. Their eyes met. And David couldn't help it - he came over his hand with a shudder, suddenly, before he'd even realized it was about to happen. Jack came maybe thirty seconds later, his hips shifting, biting his cuff to keep from shouting out loud. 

David watched him. He could've watched him like that all damn day long, but then he blinked and he was gone again because of course he was. Of _course_ he was. 

The next day, he made it all the way past dinner before Jack turned up. One second he was rereading that morning's newspaper and the next he looked up and there was Jack, sitting in the chair again. 

"I was wondering," Jack said. "Is there a reason you haven't asked Nurse Gallagher for some clothes to wear?"

David shrugged. "Well, I'm not cold, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon and she doesn't seem to care either way," he replied. "Don't tell me it bothers you."

"Not really," Jack replied. He scooched forward in the chair. "Just sometimes I feel kinda overdressed for the occasion."

David raised his brows. He put the newspaper down and pushed the table away. "And an intelligent guy like you can't see there's more than one way to fix that?" he said. "At least one of them doesn't involve me tracking down underwear."

Jack laughed. Apparently he felt like taking David's advice because he stood and he started pulling off his clothes and dropping them to the floor and David watched him do it, surprised but who knew why because that was just the kind of thing Jack was likely to do. He'd always been really great fun at parties because you never knew exactly what he was going to do next, even when his corpse was buried someplace back home across the Atlantic and he was really all in David's head. 

David didn't have any idea was Jack was going to do. He might've had a few suggestions if he'd had the time to think about it, or the capacity to think about it because Jack just kept on stripping off his clothes, boots and jeans and shirt and underwear piling up on the floor till he was standing there naked and already half-hard. He stroked himself, standing there, and the look on his face said he had no idea what he was going to do, either, until he yanked the sheet down to David's knees and settled himself over them, planting a leg either side of them. He trailed the pad of one thumb the whole length of the underside of David's cock, then he did the same thing with the head of his own and David shivered. Then, he had a pretty good idea of what Jack was going to do. 

Jack slicked his fingers with the lube from the nightstand and he took them both in his hand and as he stroked them both together, David pushed himself up on his forearms to watch. It was just about the single hottest thing he'd ever seen in his life and the look on Jack's face said it was pretty much the same for him. David liked that. Considering the number and variety of David's former conquests, it seemed to mean something. 

When they both came over David's stomach, when he blinked and Jack and all his clothes were gone, it was really tough to tell if he'd ever been there at all. Physically, at least. 

David knew he hadn't. He wished to God he had. 

\---

"Oh, good, you're awake," Dr. Hirsch said, when he arrived the next morning. He was wearing the same white coat David remembered from the before, as if the place David was might actually be some kind of medical center. Later, he explained it wasn't, not really; it was just a small medical bay of a much larger and more varied facility. 

Hirsch frowned. "I'd have thought Nurse Gallagher could have found you a gown to put on, at least," he said, then winced faintly. "Though I suppose that might be expecting rather too much of her. I apologize, Mr. Kessler. She's really a very good nurse but I'm afraid she has no notion of appropriate behavior." Honestly, that seemed to fit pretty well with David's experience of her, too.

Hirsch came closer. He felt David's forehead with the back of one hand while he felt the pulse in his neck with the other. "Any sickness? Headaches?" David nodded. "I see. Well, I suppose that's to be expected, under the circumstances."

"And what _are_ the circumstances, Doctor?" David asked. 

"Didn't Nurse Gallagher tell you?" 

"She said _you_ were going to tell me."

Hirsch frowned again. "Oh dear. She does take things rather too literally sometimes. She was a vampire for rather some time, you see. The particularities of the transformation have quite a profound effect on the structures of the brain."

David said nothing about vampires; he was tempted - they really existed, just like Jack had said? - but he had a feeling it would end in a lengthy digression, given what he knew of Hirsch. 

"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Hirsch went on. "If we can cure vampirism, why can't we cure lycanthropy? Frankly, we can only cure vampirism in a small number of cases. And the council has been working on lycanthropy for some time now, without considerable success. I'm afraid for now the only reliable cure is death. And," he gestured at the growing stack of newspapers on the nightstand by David's bed, "as I'm sure you're already aware, you did recently die."

"So how am I alive?"

"With a very great deal of luck. We managed to convene the council just in time to bring you back, Mr. Kessler. We used the residual energy generated by your transformation in order to resurrect you, as it were. It will take time for your body to adjust, of course, which is why you're here. You _did_ just come back from the dead."

David just looked at Hirsch like he'd put on a tutu and started dancing Swan Lake, which he was pretty sure would've made more sense to him at that particular moment. 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kessler," Hirsch said. "This must all seem quite overwhelming. Shall we continue this later? Do try to get some rest." And he swept out of the room the way he'd come without another work. Frankly, that was probably for the best. 

"He's a hell of a guy," Jack said, dismissively, once the door was closed and he'd appeared as if from nowhere. Then he took off his clothes and straddled David's knees and that honestly didn't make much more sense to him than any part of Hirsch's visit had, but it had the advantage of feeling really, really good. 

"If I'm cured, can I go home?" David asked, when Hirsch came by to check on him later on that afternoon. 

"I'm sorry to say that would be rather awkward," Hirsch replied, taking a seat in Jack's chair. "You see, everyone concerned is quite convinced you're dead."

"Can't we just say there's been some kind of a mistake?"

"Well, we sent them your ashes. At least we said they were yours, mix-up with the body, you know, could have caused quite the international incident if we hadn't friends in high places. There was a funeral, very touching by all accounts - we had people there. And there's also the medical situation to consider."

"Situation?"

"Well, the good news is the procedure means you can never be a werewolf again," Hirsch said. "You will also be extremely close to invulnerable; you will find shaving accidents, I'm pleased to say, will be entirely a thing of the past. Not even a paper cut."

"And the bad news?"

"The energy used to restore you is unlikely to last more than five or six years at most."

"And then?"

"Then we either find a new source of energy to replenish your supplies or you may wish to set your affairs in order."

David rubbed his eyes. Hirsch made another exist, and he couldn't say he was sorry to see him go but sleep didn't exactly come easily afterwards; he had a lot to think about. Chiefly the fact that his miraculous return from the grave would only last so long without this mysterious council's help. He had an uneasy feeling about that. 

"What do I have to do?" he asked, the next morning. 

Hirsch smiled awkwardly. "Well, we were rather hoping you would hunt werewolves," he said, and that answered that. He should've known - it was always quid pro quo. If he wanted to live, he really never could see his family again. And okay, so maybe it would've freaked them out, but he wasn't sure he was ready to say goodbye - but did he want to die again in five or six years just to go back and see Rachel graduate high school?

That afternoon, spooned up naked behind him in the bed that wasn't quite meant for two, the length of his cock rubbing slickly against the crack of David's ass, Jack told him the trade Hirsch had suggested almost sounded reasonable - after all, he knew first hand how much it sucked to walk the earth doomed to unrest because of a bunch of goddamn werewolves, and he didn't feel a whole lot like wishing that on anyone else. He pushed David down face-first to the pillows and pressed his hard, lube-slicked cock between David's thighs, then he shoved one hand in between David's dick and the mattress so he could push himself against it. David came against Jack's hand, hot and straining. Jack was gone again before he'd finished himself. 

He had no idea what he was going to do, but he guessed he had a decision to make. 

\---

In the morning, when he woke up, Jack was already there. 

He was sitting in the chair just like he always did, but then he stood while pulling off his shirt, not a single word, and all the things David had been meaning to talk to him about went straight out of the door. 

He'd been meaning to talk the whole thing through with him before he made a decision because hey, even if Jack only existed in his head these days, discussing it with himself had to be better than just making a snap decision. He figured his subconscious still remembered Jack well enough for them to argue it through if they needed to, but the serious look on Jack's face and the face he was stripping made David shut his mouth just as soon as he'd opened it. 

Jack pulled the sheets back all the way and David watched him move after that, grabbing the lub from the nightstand though what the hell a tube of lube was doing there he had no idea, even if it wasn't exactly the weirdest thing he'd seen lately. He watched Jack climb onto the bed with him and straddle his thighs like he'd done before but this time his slick fingers went around David's cock and not his own first. David just watched him, taking two handfuls of the sheet underneath him to keep from touching him though he had no idea when or how or why he'd developed that particular habit - he was pretty sure Jack-in-his-head wasn't going to object to being touched and probably wouldn't evaporate into thin air the second David's hands were on him, but it was easier somehow. It meant he could pretend he wasn't fooled by the whole thing, he didn't forget sometimes that Jack wasn't real and that probably meant he'd be better off locked up for his own good than hunting werewolves for some kind of a council for the supernatural. 

Jack moved. He stroked lube all over David's cock and then he moved, shuffled up, let David's dick drag against his balls and back, over his perineum to spring out behind him, against the crack of his ass. Jack reached back and rubbed the length of him between his cheeks, pressing with his palm and shifting his hips. Jack knelt up higher and pushed David's cock down against his hole. He took a breath, let it out slowly, took another then spread his knees wider and pushed down, steadily, till the head of David's cock pushed into him, then another inch, then another, till he was settled down as far as he could go. David just stared. 

Jack took another breath, hitching and unsteady, and David watched his chest and his shoulders and his abdomen all move with it, shifting, muscle under skin like he was real after all. He could see the trail of coarse hair that led down to his cock, veins in his hands as they rested at his thighs, a couple of old scars from a beer-related accident he'd had back in freshman year, and Jack was looking at him, all dark eyes and flushed skin and a kind of heat David had never really seen in him before because Jack had never really spent too long being serious at all, at least not while he'd been alive and for damn sure not pointed in David's direction. For all his usual bravado, the look on Jack's face said he was just as nervous about it all as David felt. If he'd been real, it would've meant something. 

Jack moved. Jack flexed his hips and he moved around him, just a little, all heat and friction that made David grip harder at the sheets and made Jack clench his jaw up tight. It felt good. It felt great. It felt _amazing_ and Jack didn't stop and David pushed up with his hips to meet him and made them both bite back a groan. He was fucking Jack, or Jack was fucking him and he guessed it didn't matter which because in the end it was all just David Kessler fucking himself, even if it really, _really_ didn't feel that way. It felt like it was Jack. It felt like everything he'd wanted since pretty much the day they'd met, give or take. 

Then the door opened. They both turned their heads to look. 

"Oh! Sorry, lads, I didn't mean to interrupt," Nurse Gallagher said, pill tray in hand, looking more amused than sorry as she gave the two of them a lingering once-over. "I'll come back later. Next time, try locking the door?" And she retreated the way she'd come while David lay there, staring at the back of the door, wondering exactly what the hell had just happened. His pulse felt hard. His limbs felt heavy and there was Jack, still sitting there astride his hips with his cock inside him. 

"She could see you," David said. He managed to detach his gaze from the door and looked up at him, not quite sure what the feeling in him was - dread, shock, confusion? - but it made his throat feel tight and his voice come out shrill. "Jack, she could _see you_."

Jack smiled sheepishly. 

"I guess now you know," he said. 

And then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone. 

\---

He didn't see Jack again for three days after that. 

He saw Dr. Hirsch and a council member and Inspector Villiers whose head he'd apparently torn off his shoulders outside a porno theater though he looked pretty good for it, all things considered. He refrained from telling Villiers _I told you so_. After all, the guy was dead - it seemed sort of like adding insult to fatal injury. 

Hirsch explained it, and then David understood. The problem was, the _whole_ bloodline had to die for the ghosts, revenants, whatever the hell you wanted to call them, to shuffle on from limbo to whatever might come after it; the problem with _that_ was David might've been the latest in the line but he wasn't the last by any means. There were others, all over the world, tucking themselves away in creepy little villages like East Proctor, locking themselves up at the full moon in some cases and in some cases...not. There were revenants everywhere you looked, if you knew how to look, dating back centuries because that was when they'd died. Or, rather, that was when they'd been killed. 

The council - a longstanding body dedicated to the protection of humans from the supernatural, apparently - could do a few things to help them; teaching them how to put their flesh back on and not just keep on rotting away to nothing was the top priority, Hirsch said, but they ran support groups for the undead, outreach sessions in the community, that sort of thing. He said the further removed from their old lives they got, the less they could interact with the world around them, and once he'd left the room again, when David was left alone to think, he guessed he got how that applied to Jack. He guessed he got how it all applied to Jack. 

Jack could open doors and open drawers and interact with his surroundings - with _him_ \- because David was around, acting like an anchor to the life he'd had before. As long as there were still werewolves, Jack would still be there, dead but stuck in the world unnaturally, and if David died, Jack would be cut off. He'd lose the ability to touch. A few decades, he'd lose his speech; a few centuries, he'd be gone from sight completely, but he'd still be there. He'd just be forgotten. Maybe he'd even forget himself. 

Once he understood that, it wasn't much like a choice anymore. He knew exactly what he had to do. He could've gone home, told everyone there'd been a really big mistake and who really knew whose ashes they'd buried because they weren't hit - he wanted to see his mom and dad and Max and Rachel because okay, they drove him mad sometimes, but he really did love them. But he knew that wasn't what he was going to do. He had another plan. 

He didn't see Jack for three days. When he finally did, Jack shuffled semi-awkwardly into the room while David was pulling on his new jeans - they should've been the right size according to the label but they hung a little loose and David figured maybe that was what resurrection did for you, but that was absolutely not where his head really was. 

"Hirsch asked me to come bring you to the library," Jack said. "He's got some books he wants you to read. Turns out hunting werewolves is just like college again, who knew?"

He should've just pulled on his shirt and his sneakers and gone with him but right at that moment, David couldn't've given a damn about werewolves or libraries or Dr. Hirsch's plans. It was pretty difficult to when Jack was standing right there in the only clothes he'd ever be able to wear again, ignoring the fact that until three days before he'd let David believe he was hallucinating him. David guessed he'd never actually lied - he _wasn't_ real, at least not in the bodily sense - but it was sure as hell a lie of omission. And there Jack was, trying to act like three days before that they'd not been in bed together, like they'd not been having sex, like all they were was friends. 

David got it, he really did; it turned out Jack was just as chickenshit about the whole thing as he was, and he _really_ was. And he was angry, but David was angry about everything, and he knew it'd take him time to adjust to whatever the hell this new life was, but one thing he didn't need to adjust to was the fact Jack was in it. Jack, it turned out, was still just as _Jack_ as ever. Hell, he bound David to the world just as much as David bound him. 

So, David didn't put on his shirt or his shoes and he didn't leave the room, at least not right away. He walked straight over there to Jack, barefoot and bare-chested, got his hands into Jack's hair and kissed him for all he was worth. Jack wrapped his arms around David's waist and he kissed him back like it was the biggest relief in the world. Ghost or no ghost, he felt pretty real. 

"I figure Hirsch can wait a while," David said, flushed and breathless when they pulled apart. "We have some lost time to make up for, right?"

Jack grinned. He set his hands on David's bare shoulders. 

"You know, David, that might just be the most sensible thing you've ever said," he said. 

David couldn't help but agree. And when they went to bed and kept Hirsch waiting, this time they locked the door. 

\---

David died twelve years ago today. 

Jack threw him a party earlier, at the council headquarters in their building in London where David woke up that first day, where he pretty much lives now when he's not out doing his job. Everyone came. Even Villiers. Even Gerald Bringsley, still in his pinstripe suit, though he glared at him over his cup of tea. Apparently it doesn't matter that David had as little say in the whole werewolf thing as he did - still, Jack's always there to keep the party polite between them. As polite as Jack ever is, that is, which is to say not very. 

It's been twelve years and tonight David goes back to his room with a beer in one hand and a book in the other. It turns out Jack was right: with all the research involved, hunting werewolves kind of _is_ like college, except these days there's more sex in the library when they're pretty sure no one's around to see. 

He's killed thirty-two werewolves in the past twelve years, plus three vampires, six zombies and a sewer-dwelling troll that was eating tourists near the Tate. And he's the go-to guy for hauntings - being an expert in ghosts sometimes pays off when you're living with one, after all. 

He goes back to the room and Jack's already there, lying naked on the bed, champagne in hand and a smile on his face. David's older now but Jack hasn't changed because he can't and he never will - at least not while David's living. 

"Are you coming to bed or do I have to find a lasso?" Jack says, and David smiles as he puts down the bottle and the book. He joins him and maybe he wishes sometimes that it hadn't taken life after death to bring them together but hey, he'll take it. It means he has something to live for, at least. 

It's been twelve years and Dr, Hirsch's initial prognosis was just five or six. Every werewolf he kills, his life stretches out a little bit longer. 

He pulls off his shirt. Jack kisses him as he pulls him down. 

It's been twelve years and he doesn't know if he hopes he can kill them all or not if he gets another twelve because once the last one's gone, so is Jack. But Jack unbuttons his jeans, palms his cock and makes him gasp, and he figures they'll cross that bridge when they come to it. 

He died twelve year ago today and maybe there's one werewolf left out there and maybe there's a hundred and he figures the first he'll know when the last is gone is that Jack won't be there anymore. Twelve years isn't nearly enough. 

Jack nips at his ear and makes him laugh and he pushes Jack down and he kisses him, touches him, while Jack wraps his legs around David's waist and tell him he thinks Gerald has a crush on Nurse Gallagher. 

Twelve years isn't nearly enough. So he'll make the most of the time they have left.


End file.
